CND Press Digest: Thursday 1st February 2024

NATO / Europe

• Geopolitical Monitor: A call for nuclear deterrence in Europe.
• Defense News: Europeans set up corridor for rushing NATO troops eastward.
• Foreign Affairs: Why NATO needs Ukraine. Kyiv’s survival and Europe’s security depend on a more unified front, writes Alina Polyakova and James Goldgeier.
• New York Times: For Europe and NATO, a Russian invasion is no longer unthinkable.
• Swedish PM will discuss NATO bid with Orbán.
• Politico and NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg, where he played down concerns that Donald Trump returning to the White House would be bad for the Alliance.
• The Guardian runs a profile of Valerii Zaluzhnyi - the popular Ukrainian commander who Volodymyr Zelenskiy is seeking to sack.
• ICJ rejects most of Ukraine’s ‘terrorism’ case against Russia.
• Russia and Ukraine exchange PoWs after plane crash prevented last swap.

Middle East & North Africa

• Latest statement from the organiser’s of this Saturday’s Palestine march on the Met Police’s threat to put obstacles in the way of the demonstration.
• Pro-Palestinian protesters at Biden events cast shadow on his re-election effort.
• Meanwhile: Tory backlash after Cameron calls for Palestinian state to end Gaza conflict.

AUKUS / Indo-Pacific

• Bloomberg AUKUS pact.
• Is AUKUS Pillar I unworkable? The strategic logic Analysts: North Korea seeks to dominate South Korea through nuclear coercion

Global Nukes

• Carnegie: Russia’s nuclear modernization drive is only a success on paper.
• Responsible Statecraft: Biden struggling on nuclear arms control. Outreach to Russia and China on nuclear weapons limits has fallen short while the US aims toward another build up.

Nukes in Britain

• ‘We will never give up our fight for truth and justice for nuclear test veterans’. A fresh court case is about to launch, demanding the MoD provide the blood tests, compensation, and an apology following nuclear bomb tests in 1952 which then Prime Minister Winston Churchill said caused no casualties.

UK Nuclear Energy

• The Financial Times, Reuters, and Sky News report on the funding row over Hinkley Point C, as the French government puts pressure on the UK government to provide loan guarantees to try to ease EDF’s financing costs of the overdue and overbudget project in Somerset.
• Cracks have appeared in an alliance between Labour and the Greens in Lancaster City Council after a letter calling for the lives of Heysham Power Stations to be extended was branded “reckless”.
• Sizewell C runs some sponsored content in the East Anglian Daily Times on the 1,500 apprenticeships available at the Suffolk nuclear project.
• Drink-driver stopped at Sellafield main gate on his way to work.

Nuclear Energy

• Reuters: The Czech government said on Wednesday it would seek binding bids to build up to four nuclear power plant units instead of one, widening a long-running tender aimed at keeping nuclear power a big part of the country’s energy mix in the coming decades.

Best,

Pádraig McCarrick

Press and Communications Officer

Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament